VideoThang offers great ease of use, and it's free. But quality-related issues make this program a poor choice for most users.

Not everyone needs (or wants to pay for) a high-end, high-cost video editor. VideoThang is neither. Instead, it's a very easy-to-use and well-intentioned product. Sadly, it suffers from several unfortunate design and implementation flaws that dramatically limit output quality and overall utility. To see how it compares with the rest of the something-for-nothing space, I tested VideoThang against two other free video editors, Pinnacle Systems' VideoSpin, and even Movie Maker 6, which comes with Vista.

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Getting started is simple. After a short registration, you download the 16.7MB file from VideoThang. The program runs on Windows 2000, XP, and Vista, and installed normally on my HP 8700series laptop.

The program has a simple, fixed-resolution interface with three windows: My Stuff, a library for content and effects; Edit My Stuff, a preview and editing window; and My Mix, a storyboard for arranging your content and building your "mixes." Buttons across the top control create and save mixes. A drop-down list on the upper right speeds your access to the useful Help File.

VideoThang can't capture video from tape-based camcorders, but it can import video, still images, and audio from your hard disk, Facebook account, or webcam. According to the help file, the program can import MOV, AVI, MPG, MP4, PNG, WMV, and FLV files. To test this, I downloaded multiple sample files produced by digital cameras from various locations on the Internet, which represented all the aforementioned formats and a range of codecs, including H.264, MPEG-4, Motion-JPEG, Sorenson Video 3, and On2 VP6.

The only digital camera output that the program couldn't successfully import was the SV3 output of my Nikon CoolPix, which caused the program to lock up. The program also crashed when I tried to load an AVCHD file, though it did input an HDV file. However, like all 16:9 videos, including widescreen videos from a digital camera, VideoThang squeezed the HDV video into a 4:3 window for both preview and output, which many producers will find unacceptable. That said, VideoThang is one of the rare programs that can edit FLV (Flash Video) files, which may be valuable to some producers.

Behind the scenes, while importing your video, VideoThang converts your file into an FLV file using the ancient Sorenson H.263 codec at a data rate of about 1.7 megabytes per second (MBps). Technically, this is like photocopying a photocopy with a 20-year-old Xerox machine before you make the final copy, a "bad practice" that degraded quality noticeably. In contrast, VideoSpin converts the files to either MPEG-2 or DV, both higher-quality formats. Movie Maker 6 works with the files in their native formats (which is simple because it isn't compatible with many formats).Next: Editing with VideoThang

VideoThang Version 2.0.1

fair

Bottom Line: VideoThang offers great ease of use, and it's free. But quality-related issues make this program a poor choice for most users.

VideoThang Version 2.0.1

VideoThang Version 2.0.1

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